I want to share with you some pretty major changes we are making at the high school related to Parent Teacher Conferences. We have been working for the last year or so to build a script for what we hope is a much more meaningful Student Led Conference process. The goal for these student led conferences is for each student to take ownership of their present level of work, goals, and future plans–with the support of their parents and teachers. In the process, we hope to put greater focus on taking actions that will ensure, to a greater degree, that each and every student is truly ready for the next step in their lives after high school.

Our Freshmen, Sophomore and Senior students will spend their homeroom time the week beginning on January 30th to work through a template that will focus on their career choices, the requirements of the training programs related to those careers, an assessment of their current performance in school in relation to their goals, decisions for scheduling classes for next year again in conjunction with their career goals, and setting some personal academic goals. The students will be using the script to prepare a presentation of sorts for their parents at the conferences on Monday, February 6th or Tuesday, February 7th. We will not have Student Led Conferences with the juniors and their parents because Mr. Cole meets with each junior family during the school year. The senior script is much more focused on important aspects of the transition from high school to each student’s plans for the future.

At this point, it looks like each teacher will be assigned about 12 students who they will support through the preparations and at the conference with their parents. This will also allow us to have additional time on the evenings of February 6th and 7th if parents would like to come in and meet with their children’s teachers in a more traditional manner. I will provide more details as we get closer to the conferences, and the teacher who is assigned to your child will contact you directly to set a conference time for your family. We sincerely hope every parent will make themselves available for these important discussions, and we hope that the Student Led Conference process itself helps parents to continue to play a central role in their child’s educational process toward their career choice.

Happy New Year to each of you and your families. I hope 2017 is a very rewarding year.

School District of Oostburg

“The mission of the Oostburg School District is to ensure all students learn at high levels so they can become productive and positive contributors to society and the world.”

No person may be denied admission to any public school in the district or be denied participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be discriminated against in any curricular, co-curricular, student services, recreational or other program or activity because of the person’s sex, race, color, national origin, ancestry, creed, religion, pregnancy, marital or parental status, sexual orientation, handicap or physical, mental, emotional or learning disability in the educational programs or activities operated by the School District of Oostburg.